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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585685">The Kindness Of A Fallen Angel</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luz_Floral/pseuds/Luz_Floral'>Luz_Floral</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adult Number Five | The Boy, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Consensual Sex, F/M, First Love, Five is convinced that Vanya doesn't want him, Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, Romance, Rough Sex, She obviously wants him</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:46:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>8,173</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27585685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luz_Floral/pseuds/Luz_Floral</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stay.” She whispered in a small voice, barely audible.</p><p>“I’ll stay.” He lied.</p><p>He could feel her breathing unevenly, her heart beating erratically against his chest, her scent absolutely intoxicating, and everything about her felt like home. He felt like an army soldier returning to his wife after going to war. But he knew that Vanya would never agree to have him.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>119</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Inaccessible</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Is anyone else seeing..." Klaus murmured confused, clearly more drunk than usual. "Is it just me?"</p><p>Vanya looked at the man carefully. It couldn't be him... It's not possible, he was dead. He could only be dead, but those defiant green eyes, the square jaw, almost as if sculpted, the harmonious features and the indecipherable countenance... It could only be him, the same, and completely different from when he was thirteen.</p><p>"Five ..." she whispered in astonishment.</p><p>The austere figure turned to the sound of her voice. Five had changed a lot, he was even taller than Diego, but his taciturn gaze had not changed. He looked at her callously, bordering on cruelty. Vanya did not retreat, she was afraid that if she looked away he would disappear, like a mirage.</p><p>"Five?" Luther asked skeptically looking at Vanya as if she had gone insane. "Of course not."</p><p>Then, with a corrosive sigh, Five took off his overcoat and blazer, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and exposed the tattoo.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>"What's the date?" His voice was deeper, a velvety and impatient tone. "The exact date."</p><p>They were all huddled on the edge of the rectangular table as they watched the older version of the boy walk through the kitchen, as if he had never left. Everyone was completely incredulous.</p><p>"24." Vanya answered in a whisper, her voice barely came out of her throat.</p><p>"Of what?" His tone became even more impatient as he opened a bag of bread.</p><p>Vanya wondered what she had done wrong to receive that severe treatment, the glacial look, the impatient tone... She had waited for him for ten years, and then he came back as if nothing had happened, apparently almost twenty years older, twenty-five centimeters taller, with a sharp look and treating her apathetically. Like a complete stranger.</p><p>"March."</p><p>He looked down for a moment as if he were doing a calculation and then muttered a "Good." casually.</p><p>Vanya watched the inaccessible figure of the man as he opened the jar of peanut butter, the conversation extended among the others but she couldn't pay attention to them, she was completely focused on Five while he prepared his sandwich. For years she had made him that exact same snack every night, waiting patiently for his return, leaving the lights on for him, and praying to all possible divine entities for him to come home.</p><p>"Wait, how did you get back?" She asked finally.</p><p>"In the end, I had to project my consciousness forward into a suspended quantum version of myself that exists across all possible instances of time."</p><p>"This makes no sense." Diego whispered confused.</p><p>"Well, it would if you were smarter." He scoffed with a small sarcastic smile on his face, barely noticeable.</p><p>Diego advanced towards Five and if it weren't for Luther blocking his way, Vanya was sure the two would have really fought. And Five <em>would have won...</em> She thought while looking at the man's silhouette sheepishly and then feeling her face boil with shame, less than thirty minutes back and she was already undressing him with her eyes.</p><p>“My conscience and my body are thirty years old. But my body was supposed to be 23 again, just like you. ” Vanya heard him speak again and came back to the reality of the situation, her mind was wandering through every possible ethereal imaginary scenario that involved her and Five, and in none of them the others were present.</p><p>Five bit into the sandwich he had just made. He explained everything casually, as if it were obvious.</p><p>"How is this possible?" Vanya asked, already waiting for a cynical answer.</p><p>But he didn't.</p><p>"You know, I almost made a mistake." He took another bite of his sandwich before continuing. “I could be in the body of a thirteen-year-old now. Just because of a typo. Just a decimal number in the wrong place when I was trying to prove the existence of a bound for the number of limit cycles of planar polynomial vector fields of fixed-degree and the results could have been catastrophic. ” He spoke briefly and then looked at the girl in the eye. "I almost missed and put five point seven, it was zero point five seven."</p><p>Vanya remembered that. His confused and devious monologues, casually loosened in random conversations.</p><p>For a moment she felt a wave of affection and nostalgia flood her chest. The disgusting sandwich he liked in his hand, his disconnected soliloquies, and his enigmatic green eyes, it was all too familiar. She felt like she was talking to the same Five from ten years ago. But then after a few brief words, he was already out of the room. Vanya stayed there, not knowing what to think or what to feel.</p><p>He was back. But why now? Why not before? Why did he abandon her for so long? Didn't he want to come back? Maybe he couldn't get back? Was he stuck in the future or just didn't want to go back to the present?</p><p>There were so many questions that flitted over the girl's head that she didn't even think before following the man into the living room.</p><p>Maybe it was just curiosity, maybe it was her sudden urge to fight him, curse him for all the years she spent waiting for his return, maybe it was the fear of the man abruptly disappearing again. Maybe it was the desire to touch him, to prove to herself that it was real, that he was real. She didn't want to let him escape again.</p><p>When the girl entered the room Five was so focused on observing his own portrait on the wall that he didn't even seem to notice her presence.</p><p>For a moment Vanya watched him carefully, almost as if she still didn't believe that the adult figure was actually Five. As she approached him, however, she realized that the birthmark that the boy had on the back of his neck was still there. And if his arrogant green eyes, his disdain, his mannerisms, and his tattoo hadn't been enough to convince her yet, that was the proof she needed.</p><p>For a brief second Vanya wanted to touch his neck, make sure it wasn't a hallucination, but then he suddenly turned to her. The same cold, unfazed eyes as before. She looked away completely embarrassed.</p><p>"I read your book by the way." His voice resonated around the room, softer than before "Found it in a library that was still standing."</p><p>Vanya looked up at him for a second, completely confused by his last sentence. Five, however, was no longer looking at her, his eyes roamed the decoration of the house. <em>Were there no more libraries in the future?</em> She thought as she watched the unreadable figure walking around the room at a leisurely pace with his hands in his pockets. She felt like she was about to fall into a trap.</p><p>"I thought it was pretty good... All things considered." His gaze was still distant as he studied the eccentric decor.</p><p>"Yeah, definitely ballsy." He confessed looking her in the eye again and taking a step towards her. Vanya almost stepped back in intimidation. "Giving up the family secrets... Sure that went over well."</p><p>"They hate me." She replied.</p><p>"Well, there are worse things that can happen."</p><p>“Do you hate me?” She asked without thinking. She wanted to hear anything that was remotely sweet and comforting from that Five. The Five that made her wait for years, that was being listless and that was extremely attractive in that suit.</p><p>"No." He frowned. "Why would I hate you?"</p><p>"In the book, I said that we were just strangers living under the same roof and that we were never brothers..."</p><p>He shrugged.</p><p>"Family in name, but not in fact." He quoted her. "You were right."</p><p>"I said that we will always be doomed to solitude and that we are damaged." He continued with his indifferent expression. "Five, I said that you were arrogant and that you were prone to anger outbursts."</p><p>"You weren't wrong." His voice seemed even softer now as if he was trying to show her that he wasn't angry.</p><p>"Maybe. But it wasn't very kind of me."</p><p>He took his hands out of his overcoat pockets, he was holding a lighter. When he lit his cigarette, Vanya thought of scolding him as she would have done when he was thirteen. But now he was an adult responsible for his own actions, and she no longer knew his quirks and addictions as before, so she just watched him.</p><p>"Kindness is overrated." He murmured as he exhaled the smoke through his lips.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The next chapter will be posted tomorrow!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Cleaning The Wounds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Vanya returned home completely exhausted from the day's events. Her head felt too heavy for her neck as she thought about Reginald's death, about Luther thinking one of them was responsible for a murder, about the fight between him and Diego during the funeral, about Five...</p><p>She couldn't stop thinking about Five's older figure, she was extremely curious. She wanted to know about the future, about his life, about his work, about everything. Wanted to know why he hadn't come back before... She didn't want to believe that he had abandoned them by choice.</p><p>But of course, he wouldn't give that information to her easily, nothing was ever easy when it came to Five.</p><p>She opened the door to her apartment carefully, trying not to make a noise so as not to wake the neighbors. She just wanted to take a hot shower, go to bed, and not think about anything that had happened that day.</p><p>But as soon as she stepped inside, she heard a noise in the room and the lamp suddenly turned on partially illuminating the place. The girl jumped back in panic, her heart almost escaping her mouth when she realized that the figure inside her apartment was just Five.</p><p>"Oh God ..." She closed her eyes for a moment trying to recover from the shock.</p><p>"You should have locks on the windows." His voice was soft, but his gaze remained distant and impassive.</p><p>"I live on the second floor." She said putting her blazer and keys on the sideboard. Her heart was still agitated by the fright she had taken, or maybe it was just because of him.</p><p>"Rapists can climb." He raised one of his eyebrows as if to say something obvious.</p><p>"You are so weird." She murmured, closing the apartment door. She didn't even think to ask how he got her address; it wasn't important.</p><p>Five was sitting in the armchair next to the bookshelves. Apparently, he had moved the order of her books and removed her violin from its case. His overcoat and his blazer were folded up on the couch and now he was wearing only his dress shirt with the loose tie resting on his collar. He was handsome. Vanya was not used to his adult body yet.</p><p>The girl sat on the sofa next to the armchair and then she noticed the amount of blood on his right forearm and the collar of his shirt.</p><p>"Is that blood?"</p><p>"Is nothing." He murmured sharply.</p><p>Vanya glared at him. Why was he even there if he was going to treat her that way? Why did he come back after all? He always did this during his pre-adolescence, appeared out of nowhere demanding her attention, and treated her contemptuously at the same time.</p><p>"Why are you here?"</p><p>"I decided that you're the only one I can trust."</p><p>Vanya's face flushed.</p><p>"Why me?"</p><p>"Because you are ordinary." The harsh words hit her like daggers and she looked away, feeling her face flush even more intensely. "Because you'll listen." He added realizing his mistake.</p><p>Vanya looked again at the man's wound, it was almost staining the chair.</p><p>"Wait a sec" She whispered getting up to get an antiseptic, gauze, and bandages from the bathroom.</p><p>Five rolled up his shirt, showing his forearm and she sat beside him to clean the cut, trying not to be distraught by the proximity between them.</p><p>The wound was not so deep, not enough for that amount of blood. “I know that the blood on your clothes is not just yours Five. Where did you go?” She thought about asking, but as soon as she looked at him, she found a gentle expression on his face and gave up.</p><p>"When I jumped in time and got stuck in the future, do you know what I found?" He whispered as if he were about to tell her a secret.</p><p>"No." She replied, still trying to clean the wound, but extremely curious.</p><p>"Nothing. Absolutely nothing." He whispered and Vanya immediately stopped what she was doing, completely confused by the man's words. “As far as I could tell, I was the last person alive. I never figured out what killed the human race, but I found something else. The date this occurred.”</p><p>His dismayed features and morbid gaze startled the girl. Suddenly the phrase “I found it in a library that was still standing” started to make sense to Vanya.</p><p>“The world will end in eight days. And I have no idea how to stop it.” Vanya looked away, incredulous, and appalled by his words.</p><p>He could only be delusional, that could only be it. A delusion. She thought about it for a moment, but then looked again at the man's sober and austere features. His look expressed a discernment that simply could not come from someone disconnected from reality. He was being one hundred percent honest with her.</p><p>"I'll put on a pot of coffee" She whispered in a small voice, as frightened and hesitant as a sinner who has just heard the trumpets of the apocalypse can possibly be.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>It had been exactly eight years since Five found the putrefied bodies of his brothers lying on some sidewalk in the center of the city. It took a week before he had the courage to bury them, almost as if he was waiting for them to magically resurrect overnight.</p><p>Eight years. And as much as he tried, nothing would ever make him forget the dry blood on the floor, the rough and cold texture of their skins, the opaque eyes still open staring at him in an empty expression. Nothing would ever make him forget the excruciating pain he had felt in the first weeks and his irresignation. Nothing would erase the cruel hope of one day finding Vanya roaming the city's wreckage.</p><p>Over time, however, he learned to accept that reality. His alimentation was not the best, being based solely on expired canned food that he found among the city's wreckage. His hygiene was also deplorable, he had never seen a bar of soap again and he dressed in loose rags that he found in the streets to keep him warm.</p><p>Over time, the boy had conformed to his new subsistence routine, however arduous and cruel it was. His ambitions, his deepest regrets, his most visceral desires, and all the desperate anguish of grief, everything became numb and opaque. That was his life now and he couldn't spend much time whining, he needed to focus on surviving.</p><p>Dolores, the expired bottles of alcoholic beverages, the constant smell of smog and carrion, Vanya's book (which he had found in the rubble of an abandoned library), and the "Saudade". These were his only companies. This was his life now. It had been eight years. Eight years. The boy grabbed his knees and tried to cry, but there were no tears. He felt lethargic, completely stuck in a lapse of resignation. The pain, the remorse he felt, everything was numb, completely inebriated.</p><p>"I'm going crazy." He murmured to Dolores.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> </p><p>"I survived on scraps... Canned food, cockroaches, anything I could find." His gaze was fixed on the coffee mug Vanya had given him.</p><p>"Do you know that rumor that Twinkies have an endless shelf life?" He asked and she nodded slightly, her face still as red as blood. "It's total bullshit."</p><p>"I can't even imagine." Vanya murmured staring at her hands.</p><p>"You do whatever it takes to survive... Or you die." He remembered every single day of those eight years he spent alone, every excruciating minute of seclusion and hunger before he started working for the commission. "So we adapted. Whatever the world threw at us, we found a way to overcome it."</p><p>"We?"</p><p>"You got anything stronger?" He asked with the empty coffee mug in his hand. He wasn't ready to talk about Dolores, at least not sober, how would he tell her that for years he talked to a plastic doll pretending to hear her voice?</p><p>Vanya got up and took a bottle of whiskey from the refrigerator. Her prominent eyes widened as she watched the man swallow the entire contents of the glass in a few seconds, almost as if he were trying to get drunk as quickly as possible.</p><p>Five watched the girl's hesitant features carefully: her petrified honey-colored eyes, her flushed cheeks, her parted pink lips, the loose strands of hair that fell over her face... She was incredulous, frightened by him.</p><p>"You think I'm crazy."</p><p>"N-no. I just... It's just a lot to take in..."</p><p>"What exactly do you not understand?" He took a step towards the girl, extremely indignant and distressed because the only person he trusted didn't trust him. She took a step back.</p><p>"Why didn't you just time travel back?"</p><p>"Wow!" He exclaimed in bitter sarcasm. "Why didn't I think of that?"</p><p>She stepped back again when he took another step towards her.</p><p>The man closed his eyes for a moment when he realized he was scaring the girl and sighed ruefully trying to calm himself down and rationalize that situation clearly and impartially, of course she was scared.</p><p>Seventeen years... Seventeen years trying to get back to her only to be treated as if he had lost his sanity. And maybe he did.</p><p>"Vanya" He tried to soften his tone. “Time travel is a crapshoot. Reginald was right, I dived into the ice and never acorn-ed.” The girl looked up at him again, her face still flushed and apprehensive. "Do you really think I didn't try everything to get back to my family?" He whispered the last sentence under his breath and she flinched.</p><p>"Why the fuck are you scared of me?" He thought of asking and yelling at her, holding her by the shoulders and forcing her to look him in the eye. He thought of all the most desperate and irrational things he could do, thought of kneeling, hugging the girl's legs, and crying like a child because he didn't know what else to do or who to trust. But he only took a step back in silence.</p><p>"This was a mistake." He grunted, taking his overcoat and his blazer from the couch and heading toward the apartment door.</p><p>"Five, wait!" She grabbed the man's arm abruptly and he stopped, completely stagnant. "I haven't seen you in a long time ..." She held him even tighter, digging her short nails into his skin through the woven of his shirt as her expressive eyes met his. Five looked away as his whole body shivered with the contact and proximity. Her smell was still the same as when they were thirteen, fruity and delicate and he realized he needed to get away from her as soon as possible, almost as if he was having an allergic reaction to the girl's touch. He was being intoxicated.</p><p>"And I don't want to lose you again." She confessed in a whisper and released him.</p><p>He almost pulled her back, feeling his forearm tingle at the lack of the girl's touch. Did she know? Did she know that he wanted to kiss her face, her fingers, wrists, ankles, thighs... Did she know that he thought about her and desired her every single day when he was alone?</p><p>“That's all... Just don't go. It's getting late and I have lessons early tomorrow. I need to sleep, and I'm sure you do too.” She took a blanket that was folded over the bookcase and stretched it out on the sofa. “Sleep here today. We'll talk in the morning again, okay? I promise."</p><p>She promised him things with an apparent latent hope in her eyes. Would she continue to look at him that way after she discovered the things he had done to get back to her? Would she still treat him with tenderness when she found out how many people he killed? She would still love him when she found out the amount and times he masturbated looking at a piece of plastic with a wig that resembled her hair and murmured her name instead of the name he had given to his imaginary company?</p><p>Did she love him at all? Maybe she got tired of waiting for him.</p><p>"Do you have any idea of the things I had to do to get back" he hesitated a little "to you?"</p><p>"And how could I know?" She whispered. "...Do you have any idea how much time I've waited for you?"</p><p>He remained silent, shame and regret invading his body and immobilizing him again. The stench of carrion and smoke coming back and the pain and despair hitting him like a punch in the chin making red, blue and green spots blur his vision. He felt numb, maybe it was the alcohol, but the guilt would never go away, the pain would never go away.</p><p>He remained indifferent, or at least he tried.</p><p>"Ten years, 4 months, and 14 days. F-for five years every night I left the lights on for you." The tone of her voice was furious and she stammered as her eyes sparkled with tears. "Every night I ma-made those disgusting sandwiches you liked and left them at the door because I was afraid that you would come back and the house would be dark and you would be hungry so you would leave again."</p><p>She was too close for him to think straight, her index finger was pointed accusingly at his chest, but her arm was shaking and her gaze was not on his eyes, but his collarbone.</p><p>Then tears started to roll down the girl's face and she turned her back on him trying to hide her fragility again. Five immediately pulled her by the arm making her turn towards him, perhaps too brutally, she made a startled noise and sobbed a little while he wrapped her tightly in his arms making her face sink into his chest.</p><p>She gave in, showed no reluctance, but did not hug him back, remained completely still. He sniffed her hair not thinking about what exactly he was doing, he just needed to be as close as possible as soon as possible before he left her apartment. He knew it wouldn't be reasonable for him to stay there.</p><p>“Wrap your arms around me.” He ordered and she obeyed him immediately.</p><p>He could feel her breathing unevenly, her heart beating erratically against his chest, her scent absolutely intoxicating and everything about her felt like home. He felt like an army soldier returning to his wife after going to war. But he knew that Vanya would not agree to have him.</p><p>The girl's voice sounded almost inaudible as she murmured something incomprehensible against his chest. The most devastatingly beautiful sound he has ever heard in his life.</p><p>Then he pulled away from her just enough to look her in the eye and put both of his hands on her neck. She placed hers on his elbows, holding him tightly while he wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs. She looked like a porcelain doll, her tiny face so delicate between his hands, her cheeks were damp and red and she was just so small next to him...</p><p>Then he realized that she was on her tiptoes. Without thinking he let his lips go to the girl's face, kissing her cheek a little longer than he should and then pushing the brown strands of her bangs back and kissing her forehead.</p><p>“Stay.” She whispered.</p><p>“I’ll stay.” He lied.</p><p>Then she kissed him on the corner of the mouth. He wondered for a moment if it was on purpose, but it wasn't. She pulled away quickly and he tilted his face in her direction feeling he would die if he didn't feel the tenderness of the girl's lips again.</p><p>Before he could do something he would probably regret later, she whispered, "Good night Five."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The next chapter will be posted as soon as I finish translating it, but it’s all done, so it won't take that long. Maybe tomorrow I'll post it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. "Saudades"</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the girl woke up the next day, Five was no longer there and the blanket was still stretched out on the sofa just as she had left it. He did not sleep there. Maybe he had gone to a hotel, but Vanya doubted that, she was pretty sure the man had gone back to the mansion and slept in his childhood room.</p><p>She hastily combed her hair, put the first clothes she found in the closet and called a taxi. Despite avoiding visiting her old home as much as possible, she needed to know if Five was okay.</p><p>If it weren't for that concern, Vanya would probably be furious, feeling betrayed. But she didn't even think about it. Considering everything that had happened last night, he probably had his reasons for leaving. She just needed to see him, to know he was fine, to know he was breathing.</p><p>"Five?" Her voice echoed through the house as she entered the main hall, she kept calling his name as she went up the stairs to his old room.</p><p>There he was. The silent figure stood with his back to the girl and watched the cloudy view from the bedroom window in an almost sinister way. It was strange to see him grown up in that place.</p><p>"Ah... Thank god. I was worried sick about you."</p><p>"I'm sorry I left without saying goodbye." He turned to her as if he was waiting for her to arrive.</p><p>"No, look, I’m the one that should be sorry." She stammered a little, remembering the way she had treated him last night.</p><p>He had opened up to her about everything, answered all possible questions that had afflicted her, and she still treated him like he was crazy.</p><p>“I was dismissive and... I just didn't know how to process what you were saying. I think it's just too much information at once.” Her cheeks were probably red, but she didn't care.</p><p>“Maybe you had the right to be dismissive.” Five whispered and she knew he was testing her. He wanted to know if she really believed him. “Maybe it wasn’t real after all.”</p><p>“Five... I saw my book in the pocket of your overcoat yesterday. It looks old as if it had been kept for years, but it was published five months ago. I know it was real. What you said... I trust you.”</p><p>Five watched her for a moment trying to figure out if she was being honest. <em>There's only one way to find out</em> he thought as he took the glass eye out of his pocket.</p><p>"Do you see this prosthesis?" He handed the globe to the girl, and she nodded, examining the object. "I found that eye in the hands of Luther's body when I traveled to the future." The girl's eyes widened, and she accidentally dropped the object.</p><p>"You ...?" She started to articulate the question after picking up the glass eye from the floor.</p><p>"Yes. I found the bodies of Luther, Allison, and Klaus in the future. I buried the three. That's when I realized that Luther was holding something.”</p><p>"You didn’t find me?"</p><p>"No. I thought you might be alive somewhere, but after a few months I lost hope...” He frowned with a tormented expression, and she immediately had a strange urge to kiss the wrinkles that appeared on his forehead.</p><p>“Anyway, this morning Klaus and I went to Meritech together to find out who owns the prosthesis.”</p><p>“I thought patient records were confidential. A friend of mine works there,” she murmured, studying the object cautiously. “If you had told me, I would have talked to her. I’m sure that she would give me the information.”</p><p>"I would have told you, but you treated me like I was crazy yesterday." He took a step towards the girl and this time she did not step back, continuing to look at his face and trying not to be intimidated.</p><p>Perhaps it was the fact that she had just woken up, but that morning she wasn’t thinking about anything. Five's glacial looks and sharp words didn't affect her the same way as the day before. Perhaps it was the fact that she accepted and understood her attraction to him now, the fact that she resigned from ever having him.</p><p>Now she wouldn't think before she spoke, she wouldn't let his words affect her, she would talk to him normally until the feeling was gone.</p><p>"How did you get this information?" She returned the prosthesis to Five.</p><p>"Klaus started talking to the doctor’s ghost grandmother. You know, the whole psychological torture thing. After a few minutes, he agreed to look at the records for us." He explained, placing the glass eye back in his pocket.</p><p>"And? Who is the owner?"</p><p>"The prosthesis has not been purchased yet." He gave a tired sigh. "According to the records, the eye with this serial number hasn't even been manufactured yet."</p><p>"So the person will lose their eye..."</p><p>"In the next seven days."</p><p>An apocalypse. An end to everything and all life on earth as she knew it. Vanya felt an agonizing stab of distress rip through her chest and looked away from the boy's expressionless face. She seemed to be finally understanding the gravity of the matter, and, for a moment, Five wanted to hug her and kiss her face and say how grateful he was that she believed him.</p><p>“I'm going to call my friend. Ask her to let me know when this eye is purchased.”</p><p>She took her cell phone out of her pocket and started typing something. At that very moment, Five heard a noise coming from inside the closet. Klaus was still there.</p><p>“Klaus? Leave.”</p><p>He came out of the wardrobe, tripping over his own feet and almost staggering on the floor.</p><p>"A ‘<em>thank you’</em> would be great," he murmured. "I'm going to leave you two lovebirds alone." He closed the bedroom door before leaving.</p><p>When Five looked at the girl, she was red again. It was adorable, actually; he wanted to pinch her cheeks.</p><p>"Did you miss me?" She whispered suddenly, realizing that his gaze was still fixed on her face as if he were trying to memorize every trace of her expressions.</p><p>"What kind of question is that?" He stuffed his hands in his pockets and frowned at her. <em>Was it some kind of trap?</em></p><p>"A yes or no question." She put her phone back in her pocket.</p><p>"What do you want me to say?" He shrugged, feigning a calculated indifference.</p><p>"The truth."</p><p>For a moment he remembered the acid tears he cried reading Vanya's book, his desperate prayers to return home, the people he killed in the commission, everything for her, everything to get back to her. Of course, for others too, he loved them, but mostly for her.</p><p>He remembered all the times he bought the company of women who remotely resembled her. The times he fucked other people in the most affectionate and intimate way possible, looking into their eyes, kissing their lips tenderly, and making them a thousand oaths of love and loyalty while calling them by a name they didn't recognize.</p><p>His mouth was dry when he murmured, "You couldn't handle the truth."</p><p>"So you didn't miss me." He remained silent.</p><p>Vanya sighed heavily. Ten years. She would be able to deal with yet another rejection, just another broken heart, and she would feel free, like someone who deliberately opens a wound and feels relieved by the pain and the oozing of blood. And Five would forever be an incurable injury.</p><p><em>Fuck it</em> she thought. <em>Let him know. Fuck it. May he loathe me for the rest of my life. Fuck it. I was without him for ten years, I could take ten more. But let him know. Because I prefer rejection and abandonment to the unsettling doubt of one: What if?</em></p><p>"I fell in love with you when we were thirteen." His face contracted into what she thought was disgust. <em>Fuck it. May he repudiate me, then.</em> She continued: “One day you were in my room reading The Prince and I was trying to play one of Paganini's caprices, you said you preferred it when I played Clair De Lune. I asked why and you told me that I...”</p><p>"Seemed happier playing Clair De Lune," he interrupted her, the tone of his voice remained unaltered.</p><p>"And I fell in love with you." She held her gaze on his face, repeating over and over to herself the phrase that had now become almost a spiritual mantra of hers:</p><p> “Let him know. Just let...”</p><p>The man remained stagnant for a moment, completely incredulous, and then a small scathing laugh escaped between his lips as he looked away from the girl.</p><p>"I fell in love with you long before that."</p><p>She laughed bitterly. He was playing. He could only be.</p><p>"Right."</p><p>"You don’t believe me?"</p><p>"Not for a second."</p><p>Even if she didn't believe him, she wanted him to repeat it, to confirm again and again that her affection was reciprocated.</p><p>"It is the truth,” he murmured, taking another step towards the girl. His posture was tilted, so he could look her in the eye, hands tucked into his pockets. Such a casual countenance, so unaffected, as always.</p><p>"Give me permission to touch you, Vanya." It sounded more like an order than a request.</p><p>She was silent for a moment, looking at him and trying to understand whether those words were serious or not. So it was true? He didn't move until she answered.</p><p>"Touch me." The phrase, instead of sounding like an order as she intended, sounded like a supplication.</p><p>She tried not to break eye contact, to show that she was convinced, that she desired that, that she needed that, that she would die frustrated if she didn't have him. And that even if she had him and still died, intoxicated and full of broken promises about a love lost in time, she wouldn't mind. She would die grateful. She would surrender to each touch, devour every small expression of affection he could offer, even if it hurt her, she would welcome every sensation, pleasant or not, like treasures.</p><p>"You shouldn't trust me like that, V." He murmured in an almost cynical rebuke, but his left hand went to her back, easily pulling her close.</p><p>"If you knew the things I’ve done, you wouldn't want me like that." His face was impassive, but Vanya could hear the anguished tone in his voice.</p><p>"Did you miss me?"</p><p>Five laughed genuinely this time and then moved even closer to her, kissing the spot under the girl's jaw where the purple mark was. Vanya's entire body shivered with the contact and she tilted her neck up to expose more skin. He bit the spot causing her to let out an indiscreet sigh as she pulled the man's hair.</p><p>It was heavenly, the gentle touch of his calloused fingers, his scent, his velvety lips, the way his teeth bit her skin... A dream. For a moment she was afraid to wake up alone.</p><p>"You know what the word Saudade means?" He murmured next to the girl's ear, completely intoxicated by the growing proximity between them.</p><p>"No." She lied in a trembled whisper as the man's long fingers roamed through the space between her clavicle and her jugular, placing the strands of her tousled hair behind her shoulders. Despite already knowing the word, she was very curious to know what definition Five would use to explain such a labyrinthine and excruciating feeling.</p><p>"The word comes from the Latin solitatem, passing through the Galician-Portuguese soidade then giving rise to the archaic form soudade, which under the influence of saúde and saudar became the word Saudade. There's no translation to it and it represents the tormenting and nostalgic feeling of longing for something or someone that you lost." His tone, though somewhat arrogant, sounded extremely soft and casual as he explained the etymology of the word. Vanya didn't understand a word he said as his fingers continued to run around her neck and his left hand remained caressing the place between her scapulae pulling her close.</p><p>"It represents a 'bittersweet' feeling." His velvety lips brushed the skin of her forehead softly in a chaste kiss before continuing his little soliloquy. "It's the recollection of experiences, places, people, voices, songs, everything that you once loved and that brought you excitement and pleasure and it's also the pain of separation, the repressed discernment that the object of longing might never be had again."</p><p>He pulled his face away briefly to look into the girl's honey-colored eyes, her look was almost like a silent supplication. <em>Kiss me. Kiss me because I desire you so much that I can't even breathe under your touch. Kiss me because I am afraid of dissolving in your hands if I dare to move. Kiss me, and I promise to kiss you back. I just don't have the strength or the courage to make the first move.</em> She thought as she looked into the man's enigmatic and dazzling green eyes, but didn't have the audacity to say any of that out loud.</p><p>"Vanya ..." He whispered as if he was about to tell her a secret. "I nearly died of Saudade."</p><p>With that, he finally kissed her. Their lips moved in a slow, chaste, almost lazy motion at first. He kissed her like a starving man who leisurely eats a delicacy, savoring it, afraid to finish.</p><p>Her lips tasted like sweet coffee and mint and were soft and perfect and felt like home.</p><p>Five offered her all the kindness and candor he was capable of, opening his lips, letting their tongues make gentle, calm movements, caressing her face devotedly and sometimes separating their lips just so the girl would kiss him again, again and again. Just to make sure. Make sure she really wanted him. Interrupting the kisses just so she would start it again.</p><p>But then she closed her hand in a fist over the fabric of his dress shirt and pulled him closer, holding his waist against hers while biting his bottom lip. Five let out a low, surprised groan. His hands went to the girl's thighs, lifting her up easily, and she wrapped her legs around him while distributing kisses and bites on his neck.</p><p>She felt his erection begin to form under his trousers and rocked her hips against him looking for friction and letting sweet noises escape from her lips mixed with the sound of their panting breaths. Five adored every little noise, trying to memorize their intonations. His hands gripped her thighs even more tightly, pulling her closer and making him let out another choked moan.</p><p>"I want to hear the words." She murmured between kisses.</p><p>He looked at her tenderly before speaking:</p><p>“I missed you... Obviously. Of course I did Vanya-a.” He almost whimpered when the girl bit the skin below his jaw, hard enough to leave a mark.</p><p>He immediately teleported them to bed. His childhood bed, how many times had he dreamed of the shy little number seven there? More than he would like to admit.</p><p>He remembered the doubt, the agonizing feeling of the disillusion, the longing ... Everything was dissipating as they kissed each other desperately. All that mattered now was that they were together and she wanted him, and she would have him, and her lips tasted like desire and her fingers pulled his hair tightly while he kissed her. And she was wet.</p><p> "Why did you never tell me?" She asked suddenly.</p><p>"I told you, I told you a million times Vanya."</p><p>"You never told me Five."</p><p>"Let's see ..." He whispered between kisses, his voice sounded hoarse and his hands moved under the fabric of her shirt. "At the age of eleven, I bought you flowers." He bit the girl's ear and she let out an indiscreet moan when he cupped her breast. "Is this okay?" He looked into her eyes for confirmation, and she nodded.</p><p>"You never bought me flowers." She murmured, almost forgetting about the dialogue as he started to remove her shirt.</p><p>"White Magnolias."</p><p>"Was that you?" She propped herself up on her elbows to watch him as he removed his tie and unbuttoned his shirt.</p><p>He nodded slightly, now his torso was exposed. Five had an athletic body, there were two wide scars on his chest and his skin was slightly sunkissed. Vanya immediately pulled him by the shoulders, digging her short nails into the man's skin and making him succumb to her body, his lips tracing kisses on her collarbone.</p><p>"I didn't know, I thought it was from some secret admirer."</p><p>“I was the secret admirer.” He took off her shoes and socks. “And you threw the flowers away.” He completed while removing his own shoes.</p><p>"I wouldn't have thrown it away if I knew it was you."</p><p>"I asked Ben to tell you it was me."</p><p>She let out a soft moan as he unexpectedly put his hand under her pants, winnowing his fingers through her folds.</p><p>"You're so wet, Seven ..." He murmured in her ear as he drew circles around her clit.</p><p>"I-i didn't oh ..." He bit her lip before letting her finish the sentence. "I didn't believe him."</p><p>"Is it so hard to believe in my affection for you?"</p><p>She reached for his erection, making him groan in surprise.</p><p>"Now? No," she murmured, smiling at him, the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. "It is very easy to believe in your affection now, Five." She started to take off his belt. "But kindness was never your forte." She took off his pants and underwear all at once and he did the same to her.</p><p>"As I said before,” He kissed her forehead before finishing the sentence. “Kindness is overrated... But you know, I told you countless times in many different ways. I bought you books that you wanted to read...”</p><p>"I did not know that was you either." She held his cock, and he thrust against her hand, closing his eyes for a moment and trying not to moan loudly.</p><p>"Whenever I could I went to your room..." She started to stroke him, and he closed his eyes again, trying to concentrate. "Even if we didn't talk, I always went there to read or do my calculations... I praised you all the time, your performance on the violin, your intellectual curiosity..."</p><p>"You know, a ‘<em>you're beautiful, Vanya’</em> or an ‘<em>I like you’</em> would have worked too."</p><p>"You are much more than beautiful," he whispered, removing her bra. Now the two were completely naked, and her face took on a reddish color as she realized how exposed she was. “And I don't just <em>like you</em>, number seven." He inserted two fingers into her already soaked pussy, making her moan and rock her hips against his hand.</p><p>"My Vanya ..." He looked at the girl as she moaned, eyes closed and mouth open. She was so beautiful ... Stunningly alluring. Her hair was messy, her cheeks and lips were pink, her skin looked like it was made of porcelain, her breasts and waist were so small, her breath was panting...</p><p>He started to thrust faster against her hand while he murmured in her ear: “You are so good to me Vanya.” She whimpered loudly and clenched around his fingers, he continued to stimulate the spot that made her have that reaction, causing her to make little desperate noises. "So perfect..."</p><p>“Five... I want you inside me.”</p><p>He immediately obeyed, guiding himself to her entrance and letting out a faint moan at the sensation when he pushed fully inside her. He watched the way Vanya's back arched, the way her eyes closed, the way she bit her lip, whining softly.</p><p>“Five...”</p><p>"You feel so good, Vanya..." He murmured in her ear as he remained almost completely still inside her, letting the girl adapt to his size and feeling her adjust quickly around his cock. She felt like home, everything about her was perfect. "It's like you're made for me, just for me, Vanya," he whispered between kisses, leaving almost imperceptible marks on her neck. "My angel, so beautiful, taking me so well..."</p><p>"Please, Five ..." Was all she had to say for him to start moving.</p><p>She had to bite his shoulder to stifle a scream when he thrust roughly inside her, his hands holding her hips so tight they would probably leave marks. Five grunted with the pain of the bite, but he didn't ask her to stop, neither of them wanted to stop</p><p>“Ah-Fi-Five...”</p><p>“Tell me that you love me, Vanya.” He pulled out fully and slammed almost brutally back into her, hitting a sensitive spot and making her squeak, tears accumulating in the corners of her eyes.</p><p>"Tell me you can't live without me anymore." He shoved himself into her again, this time even more forcefully and tears streamed down the girl's face.</p><p>He kissed all the tears and started making circular movements on her clitoris with his thumb, his lips went to her breasts, kissing them with his mouth open and leaving red marks. At this point, Vanya was already wondering how many girls he had done that with. When did he learn to be such a terribly talented lover?</p><p>She didn't care; he was hers now.</p><p>The girl wrapped her legs around the man's hips again, an almost possessive gesture as he let his pace become more slow, gentle, as he masturbated her.</p><p>"Tell me, Vanya."</p><p>"I love you, Five."</p><p>With that, he thrust inside her in a brutal, almost animalistic way.</p><p>"Five ..." She closed her eyes, unable to formulate any intelligible phrase, but unwilling to keep silent. “I-i ... Fuck Five. I love you so much ... it hurt physically when you-oh weren't around me.” The pace of his thrusts began to accelerate as she continued to murmur confessions in his ear. "When we turned fifteen, Klaus knocked down the wall between my room and his room to have more space for himself..."</p><p>"Mmhmm..." He murmured to show that he was listening to her while he sucked and bit the skin on the girl's neck.</p><p>“When that happened, I moved to your room. And I ... Fuck ... And I imagined you coming home every night. I imagined you tired and wanting to sleep and finding me here. I imagined you kissing my neck to wake me up and saying nothing at all as you started to take off my pajamas and fuck me and tell me that you missed me.”</p><p>Five kissed her apologetically before murmuring:</p><p>“I missed you so much Vanya, I thought about you every day... Every night... Every minute that I spent away from you was torture, Vanya. My angel ... I love you so much...”</p><p>"Fi-five, please... I need..."</p><p>He immediately readjusted their position holding the girl more firmly and working on her at an unforgivable pace.</p><p>Now she was staring at his collarbone, his neck, and his mouth, open with a wheezing breath as he slammed into her so fiercely that it would probably hurt the next day, hitting her sensitive spot over and over again causing her to moan loudly. She was close to coming when her short nails dug into his shoulders.</p><p>Five groaned, thrusting inside her hard enough to make her legs tremble.</p><p>"Come for me, Vanya."</p><p>She whimpered as she seized around him, her back arched and tears streamed down her face again as she came.</p><p>He was also crying when he thrust inside her again, putting his hand on her throat.</p><p>A thoughtless gesture while he worked on her at a desperate, almost violent pace. She didn't ask him to stop. With her eyes closed, her left hand held his over her throat and squeezed even tighter. The act brought him to his own climax and he let out an incomprehensible noise as he collapsed on top of her sinking into the feeling of ecstasy as he came inside her.</p><p>For a few moments he stayed there, everything seemed distant while he was inside her. He forgot about the years he spent in isolation, about the apocalypse, about the glass eye... None of that seemed real.</p><p>“I love you so much...” He murmured kissing her collarbone.</p><p>“I love you, Five. I always have.” She kissed the top of his head. "I'm sorry I hurt you." Her fingers caressed his shoulder, the spot she had bitten.</p><p>"It’s okay, angel. It didn't hurt."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry for the delay! Translating was very difficult.</p><p>Also, I would like to thank my two betas who helped me a lot in this chapter, @PlumPromises and @fiveyaaas, wonderful people and super attentive!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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